


when you fall like a statue

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Week Four: Future [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "Have you ever thought about-" Ladybug starts, and then cuts herself off immediately.Chat Noir looks up at her, tilting his head and feeling his eyes slide shut as she ruffles his hair with one hand. He's not sure how he's ended up mostly in her lap but he is most definitely not going to complain about it.But she had a question, even if she hadn't finished it.  He suppresses his purring long enough to ask, "Thought about what, LB?"Her hand stills. "How are we going to- to have lives and jobs and careers, if we still have to vanish every time there's an akuma?"





	when you fall like a statue

**Author's Note:**

> for the 'career' prompt for adrienaugreste
> 
> thanks shinobicyrus!

"Have you ever thought about-" Ladybug starts, and then cuts herself off immediately.

Chat Noir looks up at her, tilting his head and feeling his eyes slide shut as she ruffles his hair with one hand. He's not sure how he's ended up mostly in her lap but he is most definitely _ not _ going to complain about it. 

But she had a question, even if she hadn't finished it. He suppresses his purring long enough to ask, "Thought about what, LB?"

"It's just." Ladybug's shoulders slump, but she doesn't move away from him. "Bunnix was an adult, you know? And she said we sent her. _ We _ sent her back, because we're the team leaders."

That- _ isn't _ what she'd said, but Adrien isn't about to point out exactly where Ladybug is contradicting her. He twists his head, ears flicking against Ladybug's hands. "Yeah?"

"So we're still doing this as adults?" Ladybug says, hand stilling in distress. "How are we going to- to have lives and jobs and careers, if we still have to vanish every time there's an akuma?"

Adrien had been _ glad_, frankly, to learn that Ladybug and Chat Noir were still partners as adults, but he knows that isn't what she needs to hear. "We manage with school now."

She laughs, tiredly. "Kitty, I definitely need to be studying right now. I have a test tomorrow and I did _ not _ prepare for it."

He shrugs into her hands again, whining softly until she resumes petting him. "You're smart, my Lady, you'll be fine." He blinks at her, slowly. "And that's not going to change. Whatever happens, we'll figure it out, like always." He grins at her. "Us against the world, remember?"

Ladybug laughs, but she does sound less tense. "That's more reassuring than I think it really ought to be."

Chat Noir's tail lashes lazily and he only doesn't sit up in excitement because he'd have to move from her lap. "We could always work together, we'd be able to cover for each other."

"Kitty," Ladybug says, laughing again. "We always have to leave at the _ same time_. They'll just think we're having an affair."

His grin doesn't let up. "Like I said. We can cover for each other."

She flicks his bell. "Very funny, Chat Noir. I was serious and you know it. Don't you want a career? That isn't..._ this, _" she adds hastily, obviously anticipating his answer.

And, well, Adrien can't exactly tell her that he _ has _ a career and prefers this anyway. He likes modelling well enough, and if he stays with it he's not going to have to worry about money any time soon, but he _ loves _ any and all time spent with Ladybug.

"I was serious, too," he finally admits softly, and Ladybug pauses again. Adrien shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath before he continues. He can't tell her details, maybe, but he can at least explain a _ little _ bit. "I sort of... already have something. And I make more than decent money, I really _ could _ support us both."

Ladybug makes an oddly alarmed noise and Adrien twists to blink up at her again. 

"I don't- I am not judging you, Chat Noir," she says, oddly strangled. "No- no judgement here. Judgement free zone. But that is _ not _ what I-" She frowns suddenly. "Wait, you said you only turned fifteen after we met!"

"What does that have to do with-" Adrien makes a strangled noise of his own when he catches up to that particular leap of logic. "_Not _ what I meant! I just- it's- I'm not- I mean I guess I _ am_, sort of, technically, selling my body but-"

"Not helping!" Ladybug yelps, dropping her face into her hands. She's gone almost as red as her mask. "Not _ helping_, kitty, what- what are you- _ no_, don't tell me, I don't need to know, just- look, you're _ not_, right? Or at least if you _ are _ nobody's making you?"

Adrien makes the fatal mistake of hesitating.

"Chat Noir," Ladybug says, voice suddenly deadly calm. "Tell me who it is and I will make them _ wish _ it was Hawkmoth coming for them."

"It isn't what you think," Adrien says, finding his voice again at last. "It isn't anything like that! I just- model, sometimes. _ Clothes_," he stresses, a bit desperately, before they can go down that road again. "I model _ clothes_, not- that's all I meant!"

"All right, hey, I believe you," Ladybug says, settling more firmly into place, resting her free hand against his side briefly so she doesn't dislodge him. They're somewhere high up in the support struts of the Eiffel Tower right now- not the safest place to take a break together, but a good location if anyone _ is _ akumatised. "I believe you. Still, minou, I wouldn't ask that from you." She frowns. "Especially if- wait, you hesitated. You _ don't _ want to do it, do you?"

He shrugs, not quite sure how to answer. "I don't mind it. I like it most of the time, even. Not a fan of the schedule."

"Ah.. yeah, I can see that." Ladybug makes a face. "I have a friend who models and I think he enjoys it, too, but the scheduling is _ awful_. No wonder you're not worried about making time for patrols and battles if you're already managing that, too."

He gives her his best kitten eyes. They don't usually have much of an effect on Ladybug, but that's never stopped him trying. "I could model just for you instead, my Lady."

"What, privately?" she asks him dryly, though he notes with glee that she's gone red again at that. "Not much profit in that, kitty, we're back to where we started."

That- that almost sounds like she's starting to take him seriously. Even if she isn't, he'd be an idiot to pass up the chance. "I do know an excellent designer, we could partner with her and we'd _ all _ be set."

She swats playfully at one of his ears this time. "Okay, if we're doing this together you model _ my _ designs or none at all, thanks."

Adrien freezes up, words dying in his throat, as he stares up at her. His tail stops lashing playfully and falls limp.

He feels cold, hearing an echo of her words in a very different voice.

"Kitty?" Ladybug says, biting her lip, darting an uncertain glance at him. "Hey- Chat Noir, that was a joke, I don't mean it. It was a _ bad _ joke, sorry. I don't care if you want to model in nothing but your actual suit, okay? I'd rather see you happy."

Adrien's too busy trying to breathe normally again to really register that they've evidently moved on from hypotheticals at some point. 

"_Hey_," Ladybug says again, smoothing one hand flat over both his ears. They flick against her hand and he shudders. "Chat Noir, _ breathe_. I didn't mean it."

He gasps, only now realising how shallow his breathing had gotten, and starts coughing when he tries to reply to her.

"Sorry," Ladybug says again, sounding oddly anguished, and when Adrien blinks up at her this time he realises his eyes seem to have teared up. He wipes at them hastily and before he can pull his hand away Ladybug's wrapped her free hand around it. "You did just- sorry."

"It's all right," Adrien croaks, flinching at the strange sound of his voice. "Don't know what that was about. I'm sorry, won't happen again, I swear." He shivers as a thought occurs to him. "It's not a battle risk, I promise."

Ladybug goes still again. 

Adrien shivers harder.

She relaxes, petting his hair again, and doesn't speak up until he's calmed down a little bit and started purring again. "Chat Noir, are you- are you _ sure _ you aren't in some kind of trouble?"

He swallows against the rumble in his throat. "I'm fine, Ladybug."

"Didn't seem like it, a minute ago," Ladybug says gently, draping one arm across his chest and leaning forward. The pressure's oddly grounding and he finds himself relaxing further. "I think I would have _ preferred _ a battle. I've never seen you have a panic attack when there's an akuma to fight."

He's slowly aware that she's not _ just _ leaning over him, she's shielding him as she scans the air around them. He swallows again, trembling slightly as it finally registers just how _ much _danger they'd been in for the past few minutes. "Seen me have what?"

Ladybug sits back, though she doesn't let go of him at all. "A panic attack. Have you never had one before?"

When Adrien thinks about it, he's felt like this before. He tries not to call attention to himself when he's feeling sick and shaky, especially if it's during a shoot, but there have been a handful of times the Gorilla has had to discreetly get him _ out _ of a situation in a hurry.

(It's always the Gorilla that notices- it's never Nathalie, and Father's never there _ to _ notice).

"I guess I have," he says, quietly. "I didn't know they had a name."

"Hmm." When he looks at her again, Ladybug's brow is furrowed, her eyes focused somewhere in the distance. "I know we were joking, but now I'm worried. Do you really _ have _ to keep modelling when you don't want to?"

He shrugs, avoiding her gaze. "Most of the time I want to."

"But when you don't," Ladybug presses, spreading her palm flat against his chest, paying him enough attention that Adrien is suddenly self-conscious about the way he's breathing. 

"I do it anyway?" he answers, confused, because what does she think a job is? "Nobody gets paid if we don't do the work...?"

"Chat," Ladybug says. "You're fifteen."

He tilts his head at her, ears flicking.

She shakes him slightly and repeats, "You're _ fifteen._"

"So?" he finally says, turning just the slightest bit sideways and further into her touch. 

"So you shouldn't have to worry about that!" Ladybug's eyes are bright behind her mask. "That's your _ parent's _job, Chat Noir, don't they take care of you?"

He hesitates on that question, too. 

Ladybug sucks in a breath.

"Yes!" Adrien says hastily. "Yes, they do, I'm not- doing it to support us, or anything." Far from it. "I just don't, um, I don't get to spend much time with hi- with them." That's underselling it, he hasn't seen Father in three weeks at this point. He's barely even seen Nathalie recently. 

"I think," Ladybug says, more to herself than to him, "That I need to talk to Tikki before tomorrow night."

Adrien shifts at that and looks at the horizon. "I think you mean tonight, my Lady."

She groans, but doesn't sound all that put out when she asks, "See you here tonight?"

It's rare for them to meet in the same place two nights in a row, but Adrien agrees quickly. 

He hurries to get away after his classes and activities are done for the day- he skips piano entirely, and only Plagg pointing out that he doesn't want to draw suspicion keeps him from abandoning fencing to leave even earlier- but even so Ladybug is already waiting for him when he reaches the Tower.

"I talked to Tikki," she starts, almost before he's scrambled into place next to her. He leans against her side, trustingly, and a moment later she ruffles his hair like he'd hoped. "And, uh, this definitely isn't a permanent solution. I mean, it's not a real solution at all, we're too young for that, but-"

Adrien looks at her, brow knitting in confusion.

"We'd have to work on it, figure out how to get the rest of it to work, where we're gonna end up and how," Ladybug barrels on, without seeming to realise that she's babbling, now. "But we'd be figuring it out together, and Tikki's right, we're better at that, and she reminded me that we'd want to have our own place eventually anyway and I'm _sure_ there's a way we can make this work until then-"

"Ladybug?" Adrien says, his heart in his throat now, and she stops. "You haven't told me what this is about."

Ladybug swallows and visibly steels herself, and then says in a rush, "You're more important than my identity, Chat Noir. I want you to come home with me."

**Author's Note:**

> for a second there ladybug was ready to kill a man 
> 
> title is from philip philips 'gone, gone, gone'


End file.
